Photo sparks online debate among Cubans
HAVANA — As Hurricane Irma flooded the working-class neighborhoods near the sea in Havana, a photographer for the Cuban Communist Party newspaper watched two men pulling broken furniture out of the calf-high water.
Nearby, four others sat on plastic chairs playing dominoes in the filthy water, a makeshift wooden table balanced on their knees. Juvenal Balan snapped a photo and posted it online with a comment declaring it “incredible” that the four were playing while “others work together to mitigate the damage.”
The photo ignited a furious and complicated debate about the state of Cuban society.
Many on the island and in Cuba’s sprawling international diaspora saw Sunday’s scene as a textbook example of “social indiscipline,” a commonly heard phrase that’s used to bemoan the flouting of prized civic values like cleanliness, politeness and helping one’s neighbors.
“What savages!” one woman wrote on Balan’s Facebook page. “Throw them in jail,” another said
But for others the photo symbolized another Cuban quality: good-humored resilience in the face of difficulty.
The platinum-selling Cuban reggaeton band Gente de Zona posted Balan’s photo on its Facebook page and declared: “Putting a good face on bad times.”
“The essence of the Cuban spirit is reflected in this photo!” the post said.
It may have been simpler than that: Eddy Dennis, 51, the gray-haired man who is pulling furniture in the photo, said many were helping with the work, but that some would get tired and sit down and play dominoes to rest. Brock Long said Friday that good progress is being made in getting people back into their homes or into temporary housing such as apartments or hotels. About 10,000 people in Florida remain in emergency shelters.
Federal offi cials are focused on restoring electrical power and getting gasoline into areas suffering shortages. Long said many gas stations haven’t been retrofi tted to run their pumps on generator power. As of Friday morning, 22 percent of stations in the state still didn’t have gasoline, according to Gasbuddy.com.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry